Oak
by Busby's Teapot
Summary: Thorin Oakenshield awoke in the Hall of Mahal with an acorn in his hand.


**A/N: Just a little one-shot inspired by this post on tumblr (remove spaces): **** radiorcrist . tumblr post / 105422359651 / hearthburn - japan- magpie-hearthburn**

**Don't worry, it's cute, so we can cope with all the post-BotFA angst.**

* * *

**_Oak_**

Thorin died.

Of this he was certain.

But then he awoke, his consciousness screaming back to him, surging in at him from all around.

Of how this was, he was a little less certain.

He sat up suddenly, and looked around the cold, empty room. He could not see clearly in the darkness so thick, it felt almost tangible, but he did not know these halls, did not feel the call of the stone. This was no hall of Erebor, though it still held the same sharp lines typical of Dwarven architecture and the stone table upon which he was sat was engraved with runes.

Thorin looked down at his pale form, stark against the gloom and took in the faint outlines of the scars that littered his torso. If he was indeed in the Hall of Mahal, the place set aside for them in the Halls of Mandos, then he rather thought they would have gone.

Before he could think anymore on it, he became aware of something small fisted in his left hand and he opened his fingers just before his eyes.

It was an acorn.

No, not just any acorn - he _knew_ this acorn, had seen it before, resting in a palm much smaller and softer than his own.

This was Bilbo's acorn.

He frowned down at it, in part because his heart clenched painfully at the thought of the Hobbit.

But why was it with him? He had told his burglar to go and plant it at-

Home.

It was an odd concept, wasn't it: home?

Thorin had spent most of his life trying to find one, trying to get back to the home he once lost. There was a tragic irony, one would have him torn between laughter and tears had his mind been capable of such things at that moment, to the fact that he _had_ found home, but not the one he had been expecting, on the quest for Erebor. He had just not fully realised it, at least not until he lay dying in the arms of a Hobbit.

The pain had faded away.

All he had felt was peace.

Bilbo was home.

The acorn is his palm seemed to mock him and he closed his hand around it quickly. Why had Bilbo put it there? Surely it was too much to hope, to even hold the idea, that Bilbo could possibly feel the same way, after everything.

Then, a memory returned to him, of once bright eyes dimmed with pain as his life faded to black. Through the haze that surrounded his gold-sickness, came another, of eyes wide not with fear, but some unnamed emotion, one he now knew as heartbreak, as he held his dear burglar over certain death.

Oh what a fool he had been.

Looking down at the acorn again, he wondered whether, if he had lived, Bilbo would have stayed. If he had become home to Bilbo, just as Bilbo had for him.

"_Plant your trees, watch them grow."_

The acorn might not have been growing into an oak anytime soon, but the Hobbit had certainly succeeded at planting the seed of _something_ in Thorin's mind.

Hope.

Even if it was a rather futile one, because Thorin was, well, dead.

His nephews only confirmed it. His heart had clenched painfully when he was reunited with his family, and both his sister-sons greeted him, whole and hale and bright as he remembered. It was his fault, he thought briefly, that they had died, that they had never got to live to know old age. In some ways though, such a thing could be considered a blessing.

Both of them stared curiously at the small acorn in his palm.

"So this was Bilbo's?" Fíli asked, making as if to touch it, but Thorin's fingers curled around it reflexively. His older nephew's blue eyes looked back up at him, brimming with mirth.

"He was going to plant it when he got home; so he could look upon it and remember."

Thorin did not realise quite how much fondness had crept into his tone until he raised his gaze from his hand and saw the pair of them looking at him with a mix of amusement and disbelief.

"Ach, he's so in love," Kíli cried with mock disgust. Thorin bit back a comment on red-haired elves.

"They both were," Fíli agreed, "And such idiots too."

Thorin pinned them with his glare, "What?"

Fíli heaved an exasperated sigh that was far too reminiscent of his mother. "Uncle, are you telling me, that in all the time you spent mooning after our burglar, you never noticed how in love with you he was."

It was not a question, but a statement, as if Fíli had already resigned himself to the answer.

Thorin chose not to contest the comment on him 'mooning' (he was a king, and kings did not _moon_, even over impossibly wonderful Hobbits) and instead was powerless to the smile that curled upon his lips as he regarded the acorn once more.

"No, but I think I'm beginning to."

* * *

For eighty years he waited, the acorn now on a leather cord about his neck, greeting each of his friends with that strange melancholy joy that could only come when you welcomed loved ones into the afterlife with you. He tried not to think too much about Bilbo, his attempts were futile, yes, but it helped to think that he was at least trying to rally against the pain that clenched his heart when he thought about Bilbo, alone in his smial, the once proud set to his shoulders now slumped in mourning. Once his mind even dared conjure up the image of Bilbo married and happy, and it was somehow worse and better at the same time. Better that Bilbo should forget and be happy, but worse because Thorin was certain that, had he lived, he could never have loved another as dearly as he did Bilbo.

Then he heard news, a rumour that one of the Hobbits, the ring-bearers that were granted passage to Valinor, had come to the Halls of Mandos. And Thorin had set out in search, allowed out of the Hall of the Maker after he, along with his nephews and Balin, implored Aulë to let him do so. Their Maker had not needed much persuasion; the Valar had taken one look at the acorn, held once more in his palm, and waved him through a door Thorin was not sure had existed previously.

The rest of the Halls of Mandos was irritatingly Elvish in nature, but Thorin did not pay them much more heed than that as he sped through the winding passages, eyes darting about in search of Bilbo. Men, Elves and Hobbits alike cast curious glances at the Dwarf in their midst, especially when he ground to halt upon entering a large, airy chamber.

There, just off to the left, stood a small figure, with familiar light brown curls and a look of awe on his face as he craned to admire the elaborately carved ceiling. Barely any of the one hundred and thirty one years he had lived seemed to mark themselves upon the kindly features of his face. Thorin allowed himself just one moment, one moment to revel in the swelling in his chest as he once more sighted him who he loved most dearly, before he drew himself up to his full height and strode over.

"Master Burglar," he began, his tone stern in an attempt at his old imperious manner.

Bilbo jumped and turned to him, a fond smile lighting up his face. Thorin wondered then, how he had never seen it before, the love in his eyes, and battled down a threatening smile of his own.

"What is the meaning of this?" he asked, holding out the small acorn for the other to see. Bilbo's eyes widened as he saw it and he opened his mouth as if to speak, but nothing but a strange strangled sound came out.

Then he swallowed back his silence, defiantly blinking away the tears that had begun to glisten.

"It means," he said, staring Thorin in the eye, bright gaze challenging, "That over the course of that journey, _you_-" he prodded Thorin hard in the chest "-you insufferable, ridiculous, wonderful dwarf, somehow became home."

He cut himself off, mid-bluster as Thorin had long given in to the urge to smile and his expression was no longer impassive, but a grin of blinding affection.

Bilbo just stared at him, mouth slightly agape.

He did not resist as Thorin pulled him into an embrace, thick arms closing around him tightly. Cautiously, he made to return it, arm slowly winding around Thorin, but stilled as the dwarf whispered in his ear.

"I love you too, Bilbo Baggins."

Reluctantly, he pulled away, but only to hold out that tiny, wonderful acorn once more.

"Now I am in need of your aid, Burglar-Mine, for I have no clue where to start with planting this."

Bilbo laughed, the sound light and easy, "Well I think outside will be a good place to start, don't you?"

Thorin nodded, with an answering chuckle, and let himself be lead away, those soft, gentle fingers intertwining with his own as if they had been made to fit together.

Thorin was fairly certain that they had.

Bilbo glanced back to offer him a small yet brilliant smile and Thorin wondered if the rest of his eternity could be spent this blissfully happy.

After everything, all the pain, all the suffering, he was finally home.


End file.
